Alan W:
For some time now, I've been making a note when the Target puzzle in my local newspaper (The Age) uses a particularly obscure nine-letter word. In the last few days, they've come up with two examples for my shame file: grosgrain on Sunday and oratorial yesterday. Previous entries in this list are as follows:

Of course, Chihuahua nine-letter words can also strike players as too obscure, but I have gone to some trouble to try to eliminate the more obscure words from the collection of nine-letter words used to generate the puzzles. I think the quest for the nine-letter word should be a test of your mental agility, rather than of your vocabulary. None of the words listed above would be used as a principal nine-letter word in Chi.

As a footnote, an earlier complaint from me about these obscure nine-letter words, in a forum associated with the newspaper, appears as the first result when you Google on "Target Puzzle", and a lot of people come to the Chihuahua site via the link in that post. My complaints were at one time quoted in the Wikipedia article about Target (Word Puzzle), but it was recently edited out. You can still see it in the reprint at the Answers.com site.

rogue_mother:
Alan,

I don't think that grosgrain is particularly obscure. Back in the old-timey days (the 1960's), grosgrain ribbon was used by many teenage women to keep their hair out of their face. I'm pretty sure it is still available in fabric and craft stores today.

It seems to me that grosgrain has been a nine-letter word in Chi since I joined in July, as a random puzzle word if not in one of the daily puzzles.

birdy:
I would have thought that "wuthering" would not have been too uncommon since many of us are raised knowing "Wuthering Heights."

I know guillemot and kalanchoe only because of my interest in birds and plants, so I'd agree that they're not common.

Saddlebow, grosgrain, and creamware (Antiques Roadshow anyone?) are familiar to me, but the others seem pretty obscure to me, even if I have heard them.

technomc:
I can't remember ever using any of those words in ordinary everyday conversation...